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Rancid Altoid was one of a large number of readers to tell us that "Former U.S. President Gerald Ford, who was swept into office after the Watergate scandal and later pardoned Richard Nixon, died at age 93, his widow said on Tuesday."

He was pretty interesting! I didn't realize he was a Michigan football player who turned down the NFL to go into Yale law!
Not sure I agree with the Nixon pardoning but it did get the messiness behind us. However, it allows presidents to seem to operate with out regard to legality (ie, current war crimes, etc...)

I am very saddened to read of this. I found a little more pertinent info here [wikipedia.org], a much less biased source. I am planning on travelling to DC to pay my respects. He was quite a man.

Bias? I'm not sure where you are seeing bias in CNN's coverage. They portrayed him as a kind and honest man who did what he thought was best for the country, as opposed to what was best for himself or the Republican party. Which, to be accurate, was pretty much how Ford said he wanted to be remembered.

Bias? I'm not sure where you are seeing bias in CNN's coverage. They portrayed him as a kind and honest man who did what he thought was best for the country, as opposed to what was best for himself or the Republican party.

Ford is a man who let a crook go free for the benefit of the Republican party. Just imagine Nixon, a dirty Republican, and 4-5 years of a trial where everyone knew he had broken the law. Reagan would have never made it into office in a political climate like that. And all of Nixon's cronies such as Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Bush Sr, would have had their careers ruined.

No, Ford's actions were for the benefit of the only person who elected him to the position of President of the United States: Richard Nixon.

The wiki article on Gerald Ford currently has several areas where a word in the article has been replaced with the word "wank," or where that word has been inserted. Fairly subtle, but easy to catch if you actually read the article start to finish.

Please take my respects with you. From all that I know of him, Gerald Ford was a good and honest man who did the best he could even in a tough situation, and always had his countrymen's best interests at heart. I am saddened by his passing, but glad that we had him in life.

I heard on NPR this morning that there were two assassination attempts against Ford. One of them was a result of a local paper publishing his complete travel itinerary when he was in town, when this was discussed with Ford not long ago he remarked that he was not aware that the paper had published that information! It's interesting that the attempt against Regan that injured Brady gets so much notoriety but the two attempts against Ford are never talked about.

It's interesting that the attempt against Regan that injured Brady gets so much notoriety but the two attempts against Ford are never talked about.

I know/. skews young, so it's possible you may not remember Reagan getting shot.

That's the thing: unlike Ford, he actually got shot, as did Brady and a Secret Service guy, Tim McCarthy. Missed killing Reagan by about an inch. We had to wait in suspense to see if he would survive or not. So, yeah, that stands out in people's memories. (I was 11 when it happened.)

When Ford pardoned Nixon, it did not get the messiness behind us, it just pushed it all in front of us by a few decades. The end of the 20th Century needed to see a crooked American president dragged before a court and sent to jail. If it had been done back then, we might not be seeing the kind of lawlessness we're getting from Jackass 2 in the White House today.Instead, we came to a near constitutional crisis because a President cheated on his wife. It gave a free pass to presidents for generations to co

When Ford pardoned Nixon, it did not get the messiness behind us, it just pushed it all in front of us by a few decades. The end of the 20th Century needed to see a crooked American president dragged before a court and sent to jail. If it had been done back then, we might not be seeing the kind of lawlessness we're getting from Jackass 2 in the White House today.

Really, and what "Lawlessness" is that, and how does it relate to what Nixon did? Are you acusing GW Bush of rigging the elections, and if so

Maybe GWB and/or Bill Clinton are saints, sent from God himself; maybe they're full-on sociopaths. However, the most likely scenario is that they're the usual mixture of good and evil, altruism and selfishness, who through various turns-of-events became President despite their flaws.

Likewise, their policies could be completely evil or completely good, but more likely the result of mixed motives and the general imperfection of the human intellect and psychology.

Maybe GWB and/or Bill Clinton are saints, sent from God himself; maybe they're full-on sociopaths. However, the most likely scenario is that they're the usual mixture of good and evil, altruism and selfishness, who through various turns-of-events became President despite their flaws.

Very well put, that's the most insightful statement I've ever seen in the politics section of Slashdot. To think that presidents may be allowed to be human...

What's really sad to see is how little people know of abuses of presidential power by presidents before Nixon, specifically Woodrow Wilson.

...is one of my favorite quotes of all time, and was said by Mr. Ford in the wake of the Nixon resignation. I'm actually old enough to remember when Ford was president (And Chevy Chase spoofing him on Saturday Night Live). From what I know, he seemed liked a geniunely nice guy. He will be missed.

Part of the responsibility of the highest office in the land is to make the tough calls, and he totally failed it on that one.

Considering that every one of his advisors recommended against the pardon, and he still did it, I'd say that was a tough call.

The other thing that all the people that froth at the mouth about this (still) forget is that an article of impeachment |=criminal charges. In fact, Nixon hadn't been indicted in the legal system, when the pardon was issued. Now, whether he would have been, and whether he would have convicted is something that can be argued (and probably will be) for a long time.

I'm not crying a lot of tears. Another anecdote was that he was paid to appear at his next door neighbor's party. Perhaps not a big thing in this day of celebrity and star party appearance hirings but it seemed awfully petty at the time. And that he made the guy appear at his door with the money before he would go over there.

He didn't do it for Nixon, he did it for us. It isn't like Nixon was going to run for any other office, and if you are old enough to remember, with Vietnam, JFK, Bobby Kennedy, MLK, Kent State, and everything else that had happened over the last decade, we really didn't need another investigation to tell us what we already knew.

Everyone knew Nixon was guilty, and because he was ex-pres, he wasn't going to go to "pound you in the ass federal prison" regardless of the outcome. We did not need 5 years of court hearings at that time.

Thank you for the only accurate comment on this subject. I agree that we didn't the continuation of the media clusterfuck. A trial would have made the later OJ circus look boring. Ford was one of the most honourable men to ever be President.

By pardoning Nixon, Ford stopped all of the investigations and set the US up for another Imperial Presidency. Rather than putting Watergate, and it's excesses, behind the country, Ford's pardon put them into the future. Take a look around and you'll see for yourself.

For those too young to know better; the Watergate scandal is NOT about the break-in at the Democratic National Headquarters! Watergate is about everything that happened AFTER!

We still don't have a motive for the crime -- Nixon was leading in the polls at the time of the break-in. Some suggest the motive might have been to steal the evidence that Nixon and George H.W. Bush were involved in the JFK assassination.

So the democrats had this, and just didn't release it...and they never mentioned it publically afterwords? Please, those kinds of theories are put forward just by authors looking to sell books to marks. They broke in to place wiretaps to see what the democrats were up to. Sure Nixon was leading in the polls, but does a thief stop stealing just because he has money?

Ford was a crook. He was an accessory to Nixon's crime, preventing justice from prevailing. Ford hurt this country by letting everyone know loud and clear that the rich, powerful, and connected are above the law.

Nope, pardoning Nixon was the single greatest thing the man accomplished, and it cost him a lot both politically and personally. Most historians agree that the nation would have been much worse off with the protracted political fight that would have resulted from the trial. Sure there are many who think he should have been punished, but I think resigning in shame and having that as his legacy is probably one of the greatest punishment for a man with the drive to become president. Look at the guys involved w

Nope, pardoning Nixon was the single greatest thing the man accomplished, and it cost him a lot both politically and personally. Most historians agree that the nation would have been much worse off with the protracted political fight that would have resulted from the trial. Sure there are many who think he should have been punished, but I think resigning in shame and having that as his legacy is probably one of the greatest punishment for a man with the drive to become president.

Sure there are many who think he should have been punished, but I think resigning in shame and having that as his legacy is probably one of the greatest punishment for a man with the drive to become president.

Shame? What shame? He's still defended as a hero by neocons. His people are still to be found in power in D.C.

The fact the Nixon didn't go to jail is what let Reagan and Bush II get away with their subversions of the Constitution.

Not really. There's very little about Nixon that fits either the neocon mold or the mold of their various heroes. Nixon was a liberal Christian--a Quaker--rather than an observant Jew or Christian like the neoconservatives. He adopted a policy of decline (along with Kissinger) rather than one of a powerful, resurgent America like Reagan or Bush. In fact, the neoconservatives are explicitly against the kind of Nixon/Kissinger realism, eschewing it for a "musc

In fact, ultimately his most important decision was to sign the Helsinki accords against the opinion of his party and frankly many in the US at that time. People thought it was a copout to codify the post WWII boundaries but he recognized that the human rights provisions would be a timebomb ticking inside of the USSR. It was not long after that dissent began to appear in the combloc, specifically Poland. These were the first cracks in the soviet empire.

Most historians agree that the nation would have been much worse off with the protracted political fight that would have resulted from the trial.

How would it be better had justice not been served?

How is sticking our head in the sand as a nation "better for us"?

That justice was not done, set the stage for the future. The Iran-Contra traitors are all back on the job, instead of jail, where they belong. Karl Rove actually served on Nixon's campaign, and his poisonous brand of divisive politics or character a

Bill Clinton's Head:(to Leela) Hey, sugar cookie! You know, legally, nothing I can do counts as sex anymore.Gerald Ford's Head: I apologize for his rudeness, ma'am. He gets this way around meaty looking women.Fry:(to Clinton) Hey, I remember you. I was gonna vote for you one time. But voting isn't cool, so I stayed home alone and got trashed on Listerine.Gerald Ford's Head: Frankly, I've never felt voting to be all that essential to the process.Richard Nixon's Head: No kidding, Ford!

A lot of people, especially younger ones, weren't aware that Ford was the only US president who was never elected to office. When Nixon's vice president, Spiro Agnew, resigned over charges of tax evasion, Nixon chose Senator Ford to replace him. Then when Nixon resigned over Watergate, Ford took the top job. I think most people these days only know of Ford through accident-prone appearances on shows like the Simpsons and impersonations by Chevy Chase on Saturday Night Live reruns. Some people believe that his unremarkable term of office was just what this country needed after the previous administraitons focus on Viet Nam, Watergate, etc.

I think most people these days only know of Ford through accident-prone appearances on shows like the Simpsons and impersonations by Chevy Chase on Saturday Night Live reruns.

It's worth mentioning that Ford was actually very athletic (more so than probably every other president, though Dubya liked to jog and now bikes when he can, and of course Teddy Roosevelt was Action Guy). Ford played very hard in his younger years and it really took a toll on his knees, which is why he had trouble on stairs later o

Because the Republicans did not attain a majority in the House, Ford was unable to reach his ultimate political goal--to be Speaker of the House.

When Spiro Agnew resigned the office of Vice President of the United States late in 1973, after pleading no contest to a charge of income tax evasion, President Nixon was empowered by the 25th Amendment to appoint a new vice president.

A very decent human being, was the only president to not have been elected to either of the executive positions he held (appointed by nixon to VP, later president in wake of Nixon's resignation). Apparently, elections make candidates into jerks.

as Tom Brokaw immediately came to mind when I heard the news. There are audio bits on Dana Carvey's website [danacarvey.net], and occasionally someone will upload the entire skit to YouTube (before it's inevitably taken down by the copyright police).

You know what's really amusing about that?I was watching the late night talk shows last night, when the broadcast was interrupted by a "special news report". Well, unfortunately for them, their sound was screwed up, so I flipped over to the cable news channels. CNN was the only other channel reporting anything about Ford's death, and Anderson Cooper was giving his report over a crapload of stock video of various events in Ford's presidency.

Ford and Kissinger visited Jakarta in 1975 and gave approval for the invasion of East Timor.
Kissenger told Suharto...

It is important that whatever you do succeeds quickly.

Well it did succeed and over 200,000 East Timorese died during the invasion and subsequent occupation. It's strange that neither Ford nor Kissinger mentioned they gave the green light for the East Timor invasion in their memoirs. It must have slipped their minds. Fortunately details of their meetings with Suharto are now available (released by the National Security Archive in 2001). Yes Ford will be sorely missed by the people of East Timor.

When I was 17, I received an Eagle Scout award. Our local Scout council was holding a benefit dinner, and President Ford (by that time, former president) was the guest of honor, who was a former Scout himself. I was asked if I wanted to be in the color guard, and I readily accepted. I also had the honor of sitting next to him at the head table for dinner. He was a very gracious man, and was happy to talk with us about him and Scouting. Being young, I was quite nervous, but he interacted with us in a comfortable, casual, yet respected manner.

One thing that I'll never forget is that for dessert, we were served a "grasshopper pie", which was a mint ice cream and chocolate pie. Interestingly, they served him a bowl of three simple scoops of vanilla ice cream. When I asked him about it, he said that he loved vanilla ice cream, and didn't like the other fancy stuff.

Anyway, it was a pleasure to have had the honor of spending a short time with him.

The BBC tends to agree with you, as per their article on the BBC News web site: "Analysts believe in the short term it may have cost him the 1976 election, but in the long term the decision has been seen as astute."

At the time there was so much going on and so much devisiveness because of Vietnam that a long, drawn-out impeachment would have been just about guaranteed. Nixon did the right thing by getting out of there so that he couldn't bring further disgrace to the Office of the Presidency and Ford d

I think Ford may be the only President whose wife left a longer-lasting legacy and larger impact on our consciousness than he did. I mean, he was pretty bland other than dealing with things he didn't start...but the Betty Ford clinic is practically part of our national vocabulary.

That makes it sound like a landslide election victory. Ford was in fact the first US president to never be elected by the voters. He was appointed by congress after Nixon had to resign under threat of impeachment due to corruption and blatant violation of the constitution, and Spiro Agnew had to resign due to corruption.

Ford was chosen because he was innocuous. He ended up becoming Kissenger's sock puppet.

A former President is dead and all we can comment on is the rightness or wrongness of a decision made to seek justice or move on. The comments from both sides appear pretty hot too even after all of these years. It's scary just how polarized we have become. It really seems as if you are firmly entrenched one way or the other.

It doesn't give me a whole lot of hope for the near future. Every time we see something on slashdot it is hotly debated with no middle ground and no compromise. With that attitude, I

Actually, I have no idea if there is one or not. Last night, as I was toasting the memory of Ford with his favorite drink, Jaggerbombs, I tried to rally the bar to go down and hold a vigil. Sadly, this didn't happen.

In all likelihood, given the political climate of the time, you still wouldn't have gotten to the bottom of everything Nixon did, and only put up with months of political grandstanding and butt-covering. On the other hand, Nixon's henchmen were publicly tried, their crimes exposed, and most of them did time. Unfortunately, being shameless (*cough* G. Gordon Liddy *cough*), they didn't quietly disappear as would have been appropriate. (that includes you, Henry K.) Exiling Nixon to Fairbanks, rather than California, would have been appropriate as well, but as the Stones put it, "you can't always get what you want". Having seen what drips out over the years about Nixon's time in office, you can only imagine what would have been vomited up at the time if it all came out at once. Ford seems to have done close to the right thing.

So don't complain. Personally, I wanted to see Ronbo, G. H. W. Bush, and Co. brought to task over Iran Contra, but with those last minute pardons for the perpetrators as the investigators finally got near GHWB, my generation got diddly/squat. You at least got something, even if it wasn't RMN in San Quentin.

Certain news items trancend news genres. On Sep 11th their were lots of news stories on Slashdot about it, even though the stories weren't nessessarly tech related. Basiclly anything a nerd would be interested in knowing is news for nerds. And most US nerds would be interested in the Death of a former president. Heck I'm sure theres a few political science nerds on slashdot.

No, this really doesn't need to be on slashdot. Sure, it's newsworthy, relevant, and important, but it is also everywhere else. It's a great story for lots of web sites, just not this one.September 11th was different. It was the unexpected and violent death of thousands in the largest terrorist act on our own soil in our history. It was the beginning of (a series of undeclared) wars. It had implications for everyone's future.

This is the natural passing of a single man. A former president with his shar

Nerds are by definition not in the mainstream, and this news clearly is (not that all mainstream items are offtopic). While there are various different types of nerds out there into various topics of interest, its the nerds of the kind this site was ostensibly started for that has for the life of the site that has defined the vast majority of the topic matter that gets a submission put up on the front page.

I agree 100%. It's not a coincidence that some of the worst bad actors of the current junta were staffers in the Nixon white house. Nor is it a coincidence that a lot of them were involved in Iran/Contra on the way to their current misdeeds.

Rule of law has to be for everybody, not just those without the power to adjust the judicial process to their taste.

If you're going to quote websites verbatim and at length, you really need to cite them. This is lifted wholesale from www.libcom.org. As to the content of the piece itself, well, I'm going to stick with the old adage about trying to teach a pig to talk: don't do it, it'll frustrate you and annoy the pig.

The conversation between Kissinger, Suharto, and Ford is declassified public record. You can find it all over the web, at the national security archive, or by submitting your own FOIA request to the federal government.

The office appointments are basic history and my phrasing is original.

The description of Ford's invasion of Cambodia was originally written by Howard Zinn and has appeared in several web pages and books.

Just a small correction -- the charge wasn't just "lying", the charge was the President of the United States, the protector of the constitution, lying under oath, in a court of law, a much more serious offense.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-cri43ttTo&NR [youtube.com] Also this. Notice JFK and Connally react at the exact same instant, right after passing the sign because they were hit by the same bullet. Also shows the 3d model's positioning to be correct.

Oswald owned the gun used to kill JFK, and there are pictures of him holding it. Marina Oswald testified in 1964 and 1978 that she took the photographs at Oswald's request.

Muwahahahahaha... Tell that to Mogadishu. Tell that to Beirut. Tell that to Baghdad, Paris, and Amsterdam. Tell that to Banda Aceh. Tell that to Indonesia. And oh yeah... remember to tell your grandkids when they get drafted to fight for Christendom, as it were. I'm sorry, but they will NOT be enforcing any kind of Sharia on this Redheaded Rebel.

And I'm allergic to bees, so my chances are pretty good. Especially since I'm 10 miles from Tijuana.